"Laurell K. Hamilton - Anita Blake 05 - Bloody Bones" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Laurell K)

shuffling some papers around. He glanced up, smiled, and motioned me closer.
The smile bothered me. Bert was never pleasant unless he wanted something.
His thousand-dollar suit framed a white-on-white shirt and tie. His grey
eyes sparkled with good cheer. His eyes are the color of dirty window glass,
so sparkling is a real effort. His snow-blond hair had been freshly buzzed.
The crewcut was so short I could see scalp.
"Have a seat, Anita."
I tossed the envelope on his desk and sat down. "What are you up to, Bert?"
His smile widened. He usually didn't waste the smile on anybody but clients.
He certainly didn't waste it on me. "You looked at the pictures?"
"Yeah, what of it?"
"Could you raise them from the dead?"
I frowned at him and sipped my coffee. "How old are they?"
"You couldn't tell from the pictures?"
"In person I could tell you, but not just from pictures. Answer the
question."
"Around two hundred years."
I just stared at him. "Most animators couldn't raise a zombie that old
without a human sacrifice."
 "But you can," he said.
"Yeah. I didn't see any headstones in the pictures. Do we have any names?"
"Why?"
I shook my head. He'd been the boss for five years, started the company
when it was just him and Manny, and he didn't know shit about raising the
dead. "How can you hang around a bunch of zombie-raisers for this many years
and know so little about what we do?"
The smile slipped a little, the glow beginning to fade from his eyes. "Why
do you need names?"
"You use names to call the zombie from the grave."
"Without a name you can't raise them?"
"Theoretically, no," I said.
"But you can do it," he said. I didn't like how sure he was.
"Yeah, I can do it. John can probably do it, too."
He shook his head. "They don't want John."
I finished the last of my coffee. "Who's they?"
"Beadle, Beadle, Stirling, and Lowenstein."
"A law firm," I said.
He nodded.
"No more games, Bert. Just tell me what the hell's going on."
"Beadle, Beadle, Stirling, and Lowenstein have some clients building a very
plush resort in the mountains near Branson. A very exclusive resort. A place
where the wealthy country stars that don't own a house in the area can go to
get away from the crowds. Millions of dollars are at stake."
"What's the old cemetery have to do with it?"
"The land they're building on was in dispute between two families. The
courts decided the Kellys owned the land, and they were paid a great deal of
money. The Bouvier family claimed it was their land and there was a family
plot on it to prove it. No one could find the cemetery."
Ah. "They found it," I said.
"They found an old cemetery, but not necessarily the Bouvier family plot."